Create Custom Swatches in Inkscape

• August 25, 2018
• Nick Saporito
• 16 comments

In today’s tutorial I’ll be demonstrating two things — first, how to create a gradient color palette between two different colors where it appears as if it’s a gradient, but it’s really just a series of individual colors. Then, I’ll be demonstrating how to create custom swatches within Inkscape from that same series of colors.

This is something that comes in handy if you’re coloring in a graphic and would like to use a specific theme, like in the following example…

Gradient Color Palettes

First, create two squares and color them in with the two different colors you’d like to create your palette from. For this example I’m using yellow and pink, but you can use whichever colors you’d like.

Next, we’re going to use the Interpolate extension (Extensions > Generate from path > Interpolate).

Set the values as depicted in the above image. Please note that the interpolation steps input reflects how many different colors you’d like in your palette + 2. For this example I’m creating a swatch with 10 colors, so I input 8. The reason for this is because two of those colors are defined by the two squares you’ve already created.

Once applied, a series of objects reflective of your simulated gradient will be generated…

Now it’s time to create our custom swatch.

Custom Swatches in Inkscape

To add a color to a swatch, simply select one of the squares, and in the Fill and Stroke panel, click the Swatch button.

You won’t notice anything happen on your screen, but the color of the selected object will be added to your swatch. Now, go through the rest of the squares and do the same thing.

To view your custom swatch, simply open the Swatches menu by going to View > Swatches.

And there’s your newly-created gradient color palette! You can now use those colors to color in objects the same way you would using colors from Inkscape’s stock color menu.

Video Tutorial

For step-by-step instructions with voice narration, please watch the video tutorial below. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, simply leave a comment. As always, thanks for watching!

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